


The First Time

by Claudina



Category: Final Fantasy Type-0
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-01 01:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8602249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudina/pseuds/Claudina
Summary: There is always a first time for everything, especially when you go through more than six hundred million lifetimes.





	1. The First Time She Held Her Hand (Sice/Seven)

**Author's Note:**

> I initially wanted to post this as a lengthy one-shot composed of vignette-like pieces, but I realised that making this a collection will allow me more freedom to add more stuff in the future. Each chapter will be short, though, as this is more of a glimpse of their lives than an elaborate description. As usual, my writing is very purple, because when you work in a field where your 90% of your vocabulary consists of boring technical terms, you need to compensate somehow.
> 
>  
> 
> **Author's note (2017/02/21):** This collection is considered complete for now, but in case I ever get more inspiration in the future, I will be back with additional chapters. For now, I hope you enjoy the existing chapters :)

The first time Sice held her lover’s hand in public, the older girl blushed so furiously that her silver hair looked even paler contrasted against her reddened cheeks.

“There are people watching,” Seven whispered quietly, as if she was afraid to be caught, but the words slipped right through a pair of smiling lips. Sice’s fingers around her hand pressed against the soft flesh of her palm, radiating warmth. Seven felt her worries slowly melt away.

“We have never cared anyway,” the younger girl replied, her lips quirking into a soft smile which mirrored her lover’s. She searched the room and found that there were eyes on them, but for once, those gazes weren’t hostile. They were tinged with jealousy, yes, but then again, who could have blamed those people for being envious of a love so pure?

Sice gently led Seven away from the crowded hallway. Late afternoon sunlight spilled all over the cobblestone floor through the window, and as they walked past, their boots broke the golden ocean beneath their feet like they were walking on water. The warm glow slathered their skin with soft marmalade light and from where she was standing beside Seven, Sice could see the way her lover’s violet eyes glistened like a pair of alexandrites.

Seven caught her staring just right before they took a turn towards the exit. Smiling to herself and at her lover, she leaned forward and tasted her lips. There were just two of them in this small corner, and when Sice’s tongue met hers halfway, Seven was sure that this time, it wasn’t the others’ heavy gazes which robbed her lungs of air.


	2. The First Time She Killed A Man (Cinque, Trey, Cater)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have read my other works, you probably have realised that I have problems writing happy, fluffy scenes. There will be darker chapters in this collection, and this chapter is one of them. After all, what is Type-0 without the angst?

The first time Cinque killed a man, she didn’t quite know what to feel.

“There’s blood on my mace,” she muttered after a brief silence, little fingers slicking over the bronze coating of her weapon. Deciding that she didn’t want the stain to tarnish the mace’s gloss, she grabbed the front portion of her crimson cape and wiped the blood off. The scarlet fluid deepened her cape’s colour as Cinque diligently cleaned her precious weapon up. Beside her, Trey lowered his bow, his jaw suspended mid-air in disbelief. A few feet away, Cater had taken a small step back, still queasy and unwilling to believe that they had just scored their first kill.

“Cinque,” Trey managed to blurt out weakly. The eleven-year-old looked up from her polishing job and met the boy’s stern gaze.

“Yes?”

“We killed him.”

Cinque looked at the corpse in front of them. The soldier’s bloodied skull caved in near his temple; it was without doubt that human bones were not designed to receive vicious blows from heavy metal instruments. Cinque blinked once, trying to process the message Trey wanted to deliver. There was a little emptiness below her sternum, like someone had punched a hole through her bones.

“That is…good…isn’t it?” she concluded unsurely. Cater shrugged defeatedly, her grip on the magicite gun tightened as she paced around to clear adrenaline off her system.

Trey opened his mouth to reply, but decided that he couldn’t find the right words to say. Instead, he took Cinque’s hand to lead her back to the laboratory. Cinque peered behind her shoulder as they stepped away, and even though the soldier’s body grew smaller in her eyes as they diligently placed one heavy foot in front of another, a deadweight in Cinque’s core whispered faintly in her ears: _you can walk away, but you’ve crossed the line, and there’s no turning back from that._

She gripped Trey’s hand a little tighter and bit her lip. She didn’t quite know: they had been training all their lives for this—everything they did was meant to lead to this moment. None of them had much innocence left; they were child soldiers, after all.

When she realised that she could actually feel something, one single tear escaped Cinque’s eyes and dropped on the part of her cape she used to wipe off the blood. The stain blurred, but the heaviness which permeated her soul did not.


	3. The First Time He Fell For Her (Eight/Cater)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short piece about Eight, Cater and an apple. Fluff bunny must have hit me hard, because this was surprisingly fun to write. It amazes me that this turned out as mild and tame as it is. When I planned this series, what I had in mind was something darker and more tragic. Then again, a little sweetness never kills anybody.

The first time Eight picked an apple for Cater, he fell off the tree.

“Are you all right, Eight?” the nine-year-old asked her friend cautiously. The little boy had landed in an awkward position: his face had met the Earth first, followed by his stomach, then what followed was his legs arranged in what looked like a heap of bonfire sticks. His right hand, however, was raised in the air triumphantly, holding the prized fruit he risked his life for. The apple survived the fall unscathed.

“I’m…fine…” Eight looked up from the ground and gave Cater a small grin. “Here…your apple.”

Cater gingerly extracted the fruit from his grip. A ray of sunlight hit the waxy coating of the apple and for one second, it looked more like a gem than an afternoon snack. Cater was suddenly reminded of a story about a girl who bit an apple and died because it turned out to be poisonous. The flashing images in her mind caused a hurricane to bud in her stomach.

She twirled the apple between her fingers, her eyes absently focusing at the way it danced like a snow globe. Eight had gotten back to his feet and dusted himself off. He eyed his friend curiously, eager to know why she wasn’t enjoying the fruit of his labour just yet.

“Cater?” he prodded gently. “Something wrong?”

Cater blurted the first thing that came into her mind: “What if it’s poisonous?”

She quickly clammed up and muttered a small apology. What was she talking about? It was fresh from the tree; of course it wasn’t poisonous…right? Besides, she had seen King and Nine raiding this tree multiple times and so far, the only problem they had was stomachache from too many apples at one go.

“I’ll take care of you.” Eight’s reply made Cater tear her gaze away from the apple. The boy was looking at her sincerely before adding, “I mean…I’ll bring you to Mother before you die from food poisoning…or I can try using cure…or…”

“You’re redder than the apple,” Cater teased, unable to stop herself. Eight’s blush deepened.

“I’m not an apple,” he mumbled awkwardly, his cheeks reddening even more. Cater grinned.

She cleaned the fruit using a napkin she carried in her knapsack and took a bite. It was sweet—the testament of Mother Nature’s beautiful work. She took another bite and looked at her friend. A smile bloomed on Eight’s face as he watched Cater eat the apple.

“How’s it?”

“Sweet,” Cater commented matter-of-factly. She then added, “Not poisonous.”

“You’ll never know,” Eight joked, his smile turning into a cheeky grin. “Maybe the poison takes time to work…”

Cater wanted to retort but decided that eating the apple was a much better thing to do than bantering with Eight. She looked up at the sky. The summer sun peeked through wispy white clouds, warming the Earth with its light. The grass around the garden glowed under the illumination.

“Hey, Eight?”

“Hmm?”

Cater spun the stem of her half-eaten apple. It twirled like a crescent moon. “Can we come back here again tomorrow?”

The smile on Eight’s face was brighter than the sunlight that buttered the garden. _Tomorrow? Next week? The next lifetime? What was the difference anyway?_ He promised her softly, “Of course. Of course we can.”


	4. The First Time She Saw The Light Again (Jack/Deuce)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a roll, apparently. Just a small Jack/Deuce piece, in which I've taken a lot of liberties to craft their past based on nothing but my little imagination. This is another light-hearted chapter; at this rate, I might as well cancel my lifetime membership to Doom-and-Gloom-Ville.

The first time Deuce saw Jack dance and sing, her heart leaped as if his voice was a jump rope.

They were much younger at that time. It was barely a few months from the time she lost her parents, and in a point-of-view way too depressing for a seven-year-old, Deuce concluded that she might never be able to feel happiness ever again.

Indeed, it was not happiness that Deuce felt when she heard the song he hummed, but this was something different than the hollow ennui that had made her soul its home. She tiptoed and peeked from the outside of windowsill of their little classroom at the laboratory and her eyes found the boy, laughing and singing to himself as he danced around the empty classroom as if he was the only person on earth.

There was something in the way he moved that had her gawk at the view intently, evidently mesmerised. She didn’t even realise that her lungs had been holding her breath, suspending the air within. It wasn’t until his eyes met hers that she landed back on earth as her heels hit the ground harshly in a poor attempt to hide herself.

“Deuce?”

There were footsteps approaching, and little Deuce, panicking that she had been caught red-handed, quickly pranced away, leaping over the lush grass of the clearings. He called her name another time and his word nearly tripped her legs over. She rushed away, afraid to confront this newfound feeling, unsure if this was better than the emptiness she had felt since the day her parents died. Once she carried herself to safety, she collapsed near the river behind the laboratory, her heart pounding and leaping like the spaces between her ribcages were an escape route. Deuce peered shyly from behind the bushes; there was no one around, and she dared herself a small sigh of relief to calm herself down. However, when she closed her eyes, the melody he sang replayed in her mind, harmonising itself to the beating of her heart.


	5. The First Time She Saw Her Cry (Sice/Seven)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess it's back to angst and sadness for me. Hooboy. This was quite an instant chapter: less than ten minutes of writing and bam! It's pretty melancholic, but I hope the tender moment compensates for all the moroseness.

The first time Seven saw Sice cry, it was on the day before earth turned into ashes for the millionth time.

She must have felt that something was off, because it wasn’t every day that she would come knocking at 2 a.m. asking for cuddles for a reason other than ‘I miss you too much.’ When the door opened to reveal Sice with traces of tears on her cheek, Seven felt that her heart had dropped to her abdomen.

“Come here,” she whispered, instinctively wrapping her arms around her girlfriend. Sice buried her face in Seven’s embrace. There was stillness, and then Sice shivered before Seven felt some warmth right above her heart. The tears she shed seared deep into Seven’s core.

“Do you think…we will die?” Sice whispered, her face muffled against the soft fabric of Seven’s nightgown. Seven decided that this was not the kind of conversation she wanted to have while standing in her doorway, so she gently led Sice to the bed and sat her down, all the while holding her because she was afraid that Sice would fall apart if she let go.

Seven knew the answer, obviously. Everyone knew, and she was sure that Sice knew as well. Sometimes, though, the truth hurt too much, and sometimes, all that you needed was something beautiful.

And something beautiful was what Seven could offer. She held Sice closer, all the while whispering kind words to soothe her exhausted soul. _You are so beautiful,_ she murmured. _You are so brave. So smart. You are the moon of my life. You are what makes the fight worthwhile._

She repeated the words over and over again until they didn’t feel like words any more and more like a prayer. The blue moonlight embraced both of them through the window, and even as the redness of war raged outside the inch-thin walls of their bedroom, for that moment, everything was blue and nothing fell apart at the seams.

It was not until the early dawn that Sice finally fell asleep in her arms, her fingers cold and her cheeks stained by sadness that was too heavy to be carried by a fractured mortal soul. As sleep engulfed the two of them, Seven closed her eyes beside Sice and whispered a few more kind words to her: _my kindred soul, my lover, my best friend._


	6. The First Time He Understood (King/Nine)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with more angst, yo. Work has been insane, but at the same time, I've been getting inspirations in the most hopeless places, so here I am. This is very short and may not be fully coherent, but it's something. Lyrics are from Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child, quoted because I feel that they hit a little too close to home. As always, please show the love if you enjoy what I write :)

The first time Nine understood the meaning of ‘unbreakable,’ he was bleeding his life out in King’s arms.

Bloodied bodies lay around them, like confetti dotting their motherland. Their names had long been gone with the wind, but somehow Nine knew that he knew them. He took an exhausted glance around, drinking reality in. A drape of crimson. A blurry spilling of jet-black hair. A pale alabaster hand, the fingers softly curling around a bloodied card. A pool of blood, marking the scorched earth like a scarlet letter. A pair of green eyes mirroring the end of world raging above them. A pair of hands, entwined even in death, a promise unbroken.

Nine willed himself a shaky sigh. When alone, he might not be unbreakable, but together, they were.

He looked up at King, who was closing his eyes. From where he lay unmoving, it looked almost as if he was just sleeping. There was blood on his face and Nine watched as he faded away and his name was no more than an aftertaste on his tongue. Nine, too, eventually closed his eyes.

He could feel his heart beating softly within his ribs. As the river of life seeped out of his mortal body, the fissures that cut deep into his flesh no longer stung, and in the calm after the storm, Nine thought of the past lifetimes and how the twelve of them always managed to find each other again even as they travelled through realms.

_We will meet again,_ he mused quietly.

As he let go of his grip on life, the storm overhead rained down on him, washing everything away. The earth crumbled as thunder rumbled, and just as this lifetime faded to black, he chased after the only people he held dear, unwilling to be late, unable to break.

_If I meet you no more in this world,_  
_Then I'll meet you in the next one._  
_And don't be late;  
_ _Don't be late._


End file.
